Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Recommended Prerequisite: Writing 121

Upon successful completion students should be able to:

? Analyze and synthesize scientific information in order to determine relevance to one’s own academic field.
? Use knowledge of current scientific research and key biomedical, behavioral and health sciences personnel in order to advance scholarship
and participation in the scientific research community.

DESIGN:
Students attend five classes and three pre-approved off-campus biomedical, behavioral, or health sciences seminars. Prior to attending seminars, students research seminar topics and present findings to classmates. Following seminar attendance, students present seminar reviews, researcher biosketches, and a written paper exploring how the seminars inform their academic field of study. Students upload coursework online for peer review and feedback.
ACTIVITIES:

• Topical Background Research
• Written Seminar Review and Personal Response
• Written Researcher/Speaker Biosketch
• In-depth exploration of one seminar topic
• Oral and written presentations
• Peer review and feedback

At the beginning of the course, the instructor will detail the methods used to evaluate student progress and the criteria for assigning a course grade.

Assessment methods may include the following:

• Written paper exploring academically relevant fields of scientific inquiry
• Written topic background research
• Seminar reviews and biosketches
• Oral Presentation
• Peer Feedback and Review

• Examine and discuss issues of academically relevant fields of science
• Advance the concepts of independent study and research, self-knowledge, and the ability to assess work critically
• Analyze, synthesize and integrate a variety of sources and information and establish relevance to one’s own academic field of interest
• Demonstrate awareness of sponsor or institution-based researcher bias and audience in the context of biomedical, behavioral, and health science research
• Increased expertise in the process of written seminar reviews and biosketches
• Increased expertise in the process of performing preliminary topical background research
• Engagement with scientific scholarship and participation in a community of research scholars
• A sense of responsibility for personal, academic, professional growth and development
• Ability to use library databases to access academic and nonacademic sources